Dung is a medical researcher at the Agent Orange Victims Fund of the Vietnam Red Cross. He helps organize visits to the Friendship Village. That’s where children, and a smaller number of adults, who suffer from dioxin poisoning caused by Washington’s use of the defoliant Agent Orange during the U.S. war against Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s come for medical treatment and vocational training. “The most common medical problems of Agent Orange are cancer, mental retardation, and deformities,” Dung said. “But we are researching 70 other diseases.”

The visits to the Friendship Village are part of an international campaign launched last year by veterans’ associations and other organizations in Vietnam to press for compensation for victims of Agent Orange. The campaign includes a petition circulated internationally to put pressure on Washington and U.S. chemical companies that produced Agent Orange to pay damages to those affected in Vietnam.

Another aspect of the campaign is the civil suit filed in U.S. court by Vietnamese affected by Agent Orange who are seeking compensation from U.S. firms that manufactured the defoliant. (See article in this issue.)  
 
Friendship Village
The Vietnamese government, the International Red Cross, and veterans’ associations in six countries co-sponsor and fund the Friendship Village. The facility currently houses 30 veterans and over 100 children—victims of Agent Orange across several generations.

Within the complex there are several buildings—a small medical clinic that provides acupuncture and limited medical care, dormitories to accommodate the patients, a cafeteria, and a one-story school building. There is also a garden where interns grow some produce. The children stay here for two to three years receiving medical treatment and schooling. Vocational training is also part of the curriculum. It includes sewing, embroidering, and making artificial flowers. Veterans stay for six months receiving medical treatment. The Vietnamese government recently provided funds to build a new medical center on the grounds so that the patients would not have to travel to the main hospital in Hanoi for care of serious illnesses. The existing clinic is adequate for treatment of minor ailments only. Plans include construction of a new housing facility that will double capacity to 200 children.

A small staff works here to keep the center functioning. Nguyen Tien Die, who accompanied us on the tour, is the accountant. Garment workers are hired to teach cutting and sewing. Shirts and other clothing produced by the students are sold on the market to generate some income for the center.

Nguyen Thi Nhat volunteers as an English translator. She has been working here for a year. Vocational training helps the young people learn a skill so “when they return to their provinces they can work, help their families, and be integrated in society,” she said. There are also teachers for general studies such as math and handicrafts, and health-care workers to help care for the patients.

In a math class of about a dozen students, several of the children worked with pegs learning to count. Because many of the children are mentally retarded, the instructor said, “Many forget most of the lessons, but it helps to get them involved in activity.”

In another part of the village, Giang and Huong, two sisters, sat on their beds studying English with a dry board with sentences and their English translations. Neither of them can stand or walk, because their legs are deformed. With a smile, Giang said she is determined to learn the language and wants to become an English translator.

In a separate building, veterans sat playing cards and drinking tea as they waited for lunch. Vue Ding Dao, who fought in Quang Nam province for between 1963 and 1973, told the Militant that before the war he had four healthy children. After returning from fighting in the south, he fathered another four, all of whom were born severely deformed and died shortly after childbirth.

From 1967 until the end of the war, Ne Van Chanh, another veteran, fought in Tinh Tay Ninh province, one of the areas heavily sprayed with the poison. When U.S. aircraft sprayed Agent Orange, he said, “We only saw the mist and did not know what it was. It felt like rain. Later our skin would itch and our faces became hot.” One of his children later died at childbirth and the other is mentally retarded. Many veterans now suffer from cancer and other diseases, Chanh said.

The Vietnamese government has set up 12 similar facilities and 500 clinics in other provinces to care for Agent Orange victims. The Hoa Binh (Peace) village at Tu Du Maternity hospital in Ho Chi Minh City currently provides medical care for 60 people.

Nguyen Tien Die told the Militant that the center in Hanoi is the largest. Veterans’ associations from across the country make recommendations on those who are sent here for treatment and training.  
 
U.S. imperialism the culprit
During the course of its decade-long war against Vietnam and neighboring countries, beginning in 1965, Washington unleashed more bombs against Indochina than had been dropped in all previous wars combined. Nearly 60,000 U.S. troops died in combat, while millions of inhabitants of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were killed. The damage inflicted on the Vietnamese people, especially, however, has been long lasting.

From 1962 to 1971, the U.S. military sprayed 21 million gallons of herbicides and defoliants across southern Vietnam, particularly the areas where Vietnamese resistance was the strongest.

According to Dr. Le Cao Dai, a medical researcher and author of Agent Orange in the Viet Nam War, the U.S. government claimed the aims of the spraying operation, dubbed “Operation Ranch Hand,” were to defoliate the trees to reveal the hiding places of National Liberation Front troops, and to destroy crops, effectively depriving Vietnamese fighters of food supplies. U.S. forces sought to disguise their participation in these missions by painting the yellow and blue flag of the Saigon regime on U.S. aircraft and instructing pilots to wear civilian clothes during flights.

According to Le Cao Dai, the Pentagon had contracts with eight U.S. companies for the production of toxic chemicals—Dow Chemical, Diamond Alkali, Uniroyal Chemical, Thompson Chemical, Hercules, Monsanto, Ansul, and Thompson Hayward. The U.S. military used several chemicals against the Vietnamese. These included asphyxiants, insecticides, and nerve and poisonous gases. Incendiary weapons such as napalm and white phosphorous were also used widely. The U.S. armed forces dropped an estimated 100,000 tons of napalm during the war. The most notable chemical used was Agent Orange, a military code name for the chemical that refers to the color stripe painted around the barrels that contained the defoliant.

In 1971, the U.S. government claimed it was no longer using herbicides and defoliants in the war. But Washington continued to supply its puppet regime in south Vietnam with chemicals and equipment as military aid until the end of the war in 1975.

To this day, the U.S. government refuses to acknowledge the destructive effects of Agent Orange spraying in Vietnam and only recognizes limited effects of dioxin poisoning of U.S. veterans and their children. A class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. federal court on behalf of some 10,000 U.S. veterans who suffer from health problems caused by Agent Orange. Seven U.S. chemical companies were forced to pay $180 million in compensation. In 1996, disability compensation was expanded for U.S. soldiers and their children suffering from spina bifida, a deformity of the spine, caused by Agent Orange poisoning. At the same time, U.S. authorities and courts claim there is no proof that the defoliant caused lasting damage to an immensely larger number of Vietnamese.  
 
‘Weapon of mass destruction’
Tru Van Loi, a leader of the Vietnam Friendship Association, spoke about the campaign to get justice for the victims of Agent Orange at a February 28 forum here, entitled “Thirty Years After the War: Vietnam on the road to renewal.” It was attended mostly by delegates to the second international preparatory meeting for the world youth festival (see article in this issue).

“The United States used the pretext of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to invade Iraq, but they are the ones who used weapons of mass destruction—Agent Orange—against the Vietnamese people,” Loi said. “Millions of Vietnamese still suffer the effects.” He encouraged everyone present to support the campaign and to help circulate the petition demanding compensation. Loi thanked the World Federation of Democratic Youth for endorsing the campaign at its General Council meeting two days earlier.
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. court dismisses Agent Orange lawsuit  
 
 
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